Friday, October 23, 2009

A day off…

before: Today’s 10MaD will end up being a 5MaD. Not up to doing the whole bit, so I’ll just cut it in half. It will still make a difference.

1. Bedroom:

done!

5. Dining:

done!

2. Office:

done!

6. Craft:

done!

3. Kitchen:

done!

7. Hall:

done!

4. Bath:

done!

8. Stairs:

done!

after: So what did I learn today? Well, five minutes just isn’t enough time. I ended up stressing out more than if I had just taken the full 10 minutes. Interesting. But it did make a difference.

I suppose that with 5 minutes I was able to get everything picked up. With 10 minutes, I am also able to do additional work, be it scrub the tub or organize a drawer or cupboard. Its the difference between treading water and swimming toward land I guess.

2. Harvest gourds

My big project today was the get the gourds harvested and do a little work on cleaning up the garden. I’m still a little sick, so I wore out quickly – but I did get those darn gourds in. And they’re beautiful! I’m really hoping they’ll dry and not rot…

The fall vegetable garden is always so depressing and ugly. But look, there’s treasure under those dead vines!

Not a bad harvest. The cannonball gourds are a kick – I’m looking forward to making baskets out of those. And some of the luffa are huge! If they dry properly, they’ll be very useful – nothing like home grown scrubbies!

All lined up and pretty outside the greenhouse. The larger luffa are hanging in the goat barn.

3. market bag

I bought these fabulous bags at Target when they were on clearance. I think I’ve got six of them. I’m sure they were designed to be purses, but they’re perfect grocery bags. Now I want more so I’ve got to make them.

I made the pattern a few weeks ago. I only have time tonight to cut out the first draft (thus the white fabric) and will try to sew it up on Monday. That’s fine – it’s a start!

4. menu/food

I managed to get food together to get me through my 36 hour shift starting tomorrow. If we’re not busy, I’ll get a menu for the rest of the week together at work.

5. string the black peppers:

I’m not sure this is going to work, but I thought I’d give it a try. They certainly look pretty…

They’re Hungarian Black Peppers and we really didn’t get to experiment with them as I would have liked. The weather didn’t give us a very good pepper harvest though we had beautiful pepper plants. Supposedly they make a good spicy paprika when dried, so if this works that’s probably what I’ll do with them.